This project combines GPT-4 and reinforcement learning to develop a personalized learning platform for an introductory Python programming class. In collaboration with the National Taiwan University, this project will deploy and conduct a randomized control trial (RCT) to understand how to effectively use generative AI to improve student’s learning outcomes and skill development…Read More
Vertical integration in the video streaming market has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. Notable examples include Amazon’s merger with MGM, Walt Disney’s acquisition of Hulu, and the launch of streaming platforms by various studios such as Paramount and NBCUniversal. Many studios now license most of their shows to their vertically integrated streaming platforms, which has led to consumer complaints about the need for multiple subscriptions to access content that they…Read More
This research project aims to investigate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) investments by non-tech firms (AI-adopters) on product market competition, innovation, and industry dynamics. By leveraging novel datasets, including firm-level AI-workers, product-level pricing and quantities, and textual information from company filings, this study seeks to provide new insights into how AI adoption…Read More
This study explores the commercialization and growth strategies of deeptech startups. Deeptech or Hardtech start-ups are a unique set of ventures whose offerings are grounded in breakthrough science and/or engineering innovation (MIT report, 2023). They typically span sectors such as the life sciences, clean technology, advanced materials, robotics, chemicals and quantum computing.…Read More
Private equity has become an increasingly active player in technology acquisitions in recent years, yet most strategy scholarship has focused on the effects of corporate acquirer ownership on innovation outcomes, providing little guidance to managers on how to choose between the two M&A options. To remedy this gap, I examine how private equity and corporate acquirers differentially affect product innovation at acquired targets using hand-collected new product introduction announcements.…Read More
The advent of social media has revolutionized how information is disseminated and discussed globally. This project explores the role of informational cues, such as hashtags used by content creators, in fostering safe online communities, with a particular focus on comment toxicity in social media discussions.…Read More
In this study, we aim to quantify the impact of information provision on jobseeker attention and applications. We explore how firms may improve job ad effectiveness through obtaining and maintaining a “company page” on an online job search platform. We study the implications of these firm actions on job ad performance and for jobseekers’ search. We also explore if information provision yields heterogeneous effects across firms of different sizes.…Read More
In this paper, we develop and test a theoretical framework that considers how established firms forming partnerships with startups may be subject to spatial and temporal myopia and how these tendencies are moderated by the established firms’ histories of experiencing essential failures and successes in solving R&D problems. …Read More
Academics and practitioners will log onto an intuitive user interface and type in features of their own company (e.g., its size and industry). They will immediately be greeted with an “instant meta-analysis” that summarizes decades of academic findings related to the most important predictors of creativity and innovation in organizations.…Read More
Tsai-Hsuan (Angel) Chung, Phd Candidate at the Wharton School; Hamsa Bastani, Operations, Information, and Decisions, The Wharton School; Osbert Bastani, Penn School of Engineering; Francis Smart, PhD Candidate at the University of Montana; Jatu Abdulai*; Patrick Bayoh*; Musa Komeh*; Vahid Rostami* Abstract: This proposal aims to develop and deploy novel…Read More
In this project, we aim to investigate the extent to which acquiring AI capabilities can ease firms’ transition of innovation directions in uncertain times of leadership change. To achieve this goal, we plan to identify the challenges that firms face when they attempt to pivot the innovation direction during CEO turnover. Furthermore, we plan to examine how AI can help mitigate these challenges and provide new opportunities for certain types of innovation development. Our study will provide a roadmap for firms to make optimal decisions when allocating AI resources for strategic changes in innovation.…Read More
The main goal of this project is to enhance our understanding of the role that exclusive contracts play in shaping market structure, consumer demand, and innovation. The effect of exclusivity on consumer welfare is ambiguous.…Read More
In contexts with high poverty, impact-driven for-profit firms often take market-based approaches to drive inclusive growth while being financially sustainable. Even with the alignment between “doing well” and “doing good” that these firms supposedly seek to achieve, successful business strategies in these contexts have been associated with breadth of reach (reaching maximum number of beneficiaries) with little or no attention to depth of reach (repeated engagement with each beneficiary). However a focus on breadth alone may lead to tunnel vision when it comes to social impact. This paper draws the distinction between the two approaches and examines their implications for the outcomes for the different actors involved in BoP markets– the organization, its agents and the end beneficiaries. …Read More
Algorithms control pricing and match customers and workers in the gig economy. However, algorithms face several critiques: they lack transparency, can be biased, and can be inefficient. We empirically analyze these issues and show that algorithms lose efficiency from two sources: competition between platforms and misaligned worker incentives. We model workers’ strategic responses to variation in pricing and estimate counterfactuals on the effects of minimum wage and transparent pricing policies.…Read More
I plan to study whether AI startups are more innovative than their incumbent counterparts. Although the extant literature highlights startups’ initial innovation capacities that help them identify and leverage market and technology opportunities, startups’ innovation competency at the founding stage no longer properly explains differences in competitive advantages in the digital era. Compared to traditional industries, companies in the digital era, such as AI firms leveraging big data, do not require capital-intensive manufacturing facilities to commercialize their ideas because the end products and services are digitized. Hence, the source of entrepreneurial innovation built upon the foundation-based explanation becomes obscure in the digital era, while it remains unclear what types of innovation startups vs. incumbents are better at during the post-foundation stages of startups. I argue that AI startups have competitive advantages in innovation against their incumbent counterparts based on different types of tech-based strategies for algorithm innovation. …Read More
We have obtained data from Digital Commerce 360 which publishes pertinent statistics on top 1000 internet retail sites. One interesting aspect of this data is detailed information regarding outsourcing/insourcing decisions including web hosting, search engine optimization services, product delivery etc. This is a pretty unique data spanning hundreds of companies and a last decade. We wish to use this data to analyze outsourcing decisions of internet retailers and how these choices affect their performance. The data shows variation across time and industries, and it is supplemented with many quantitative metrics for internet retailers including number of visitors, conversion rate and basket size etc. We believe this unique data will allow us to gain unique insights into make vs buy decisions by internet retailers.…Read More
Current literature consistently shows a gender gap in people’s performance in negotiation. In this research, we aim to use a GPT Negotiation Bot to understand whether men and women may be perceived differently when they use silence — a common and important conversation strategy — in negotiation.…Read More
How do instant payment technologies impact financial intermediation? I use municipality-level data on the development of Pix in Brazil and combine it with branch-level banking data to provide evidence that instant payments positively impact deposit market competition—Pix usage increases checking, saving, and time deposits of small banks relative to large banks.…Read More
While recent scholarly and practitioner research has stressed the importance of learning in entrepreneurial settings, little scholarly work has formally examined the mechanisms through which learning drives behavior in those settings. Specifically, we investigate how an active learning process based on evaluating performance relative to an aspiration drives the pivoting and experimentation behavior of startups in environments with high degrees of uncertainty and potentially intense selection pressures.…Read More
In this research, we test a simple messaging intervention to motivate individuals struggling in their goal pursuit. Specifically, we study the impact of setting a norm about the experience of goal pursuit. We suggest that informing consumers that it is normal to struggle during goal pursuit – a “difficult goal pursuit” norm – is an effective approach to motivating struggling consumers.…Read More
